


New Old Love

by Fabrisse



Category: The Lake House (2006)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 05:38:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13070253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fabrisse/pseuds/Fabrisse
Summary: Letters between Kate and Alex





	1. Letters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vashti (tvashti)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvashti/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Letters between Kate and Alex

Kate:  
_I don’t have a walk to share with you. I mean, if you have to go to Madison for some reason, I could put together a walk there, but here, I know the neighborhood where I grew up and I’m learning the neighborhood I live in now. And the hospital neighborhood a bit. Walking with you showed me how all the disparate pieces fit together, flowed into each other, which sounds a bit pretentious, but the comfort of letters -- or at least of writing to you -- is that I’m pretty sure you’ll know what I mean. Or at least you’ll ask if you don’t._

_Do you like museums? If you do, I could take you around the Art Institute. I’m pretty sure they won’t let me spray paint your name and a message on the walls, but other than that..._

_May I ask a personal question? Why do you build? What draws you to it?_

Alex:  
_I do enjoy museums, though it’s not something I do very often. When I go, it’s almost like I’ve forgotten how happy I feel when I’m in one. A good one. One that matches my mood for the day. Show me your Art Institute and I’ll let you know where we overlap and which places I think you missed. It’s a pity about the spray paint, though, I understand it’s much harder from your end of our correspondence._

_Building. You’ve touched on a sore point there. My ideal life isn’t building the kinds of housing I do now. Or maybe it is but differently. My father thinks it’s beneath me. I see it, at least partially, as really learning my trade. It’s all right to talk about marble or granite countertops or parquet floors, but how many people know why some cooks like marble or why it’s so expensive. Too many architects have huge ideas, but no knowledge of how much those ideas will cost. They say their works are ‘caviar to the general’ to quote Hamlet, but don’t understand why the people who will live where I’m building don’t like their ideas._

_I’m putting this badly. Let’s use the lake house as an example. I know you love it. I also know that part of what you love would be taken away if the neighbors could see you. When Dad first built it, he hadn’t thought about toilets, that’s why it’s so awkward to get to. At the moment, I can’t fix his other big mistake -- or one of them -- but at some point in the future, there’s going to be a proper dock connecting the house to the water. Most people can’t afford to live so far away from people that their houses can be glass. Most people don’t need to make a statement with their houses. Correction, the only statement they really need to make is ‘this is what a home looks like.’ Someday, I’ll do more personal houses. At least I hope to make enough of a name for myself to do that. But right now, I’m proud to be building homes that a couple of people making the median income can afford to bring up their kids in._

_The other part of that ‘someday’ is helping to build communities. There are planned communities, and some of them are gorgeous with a deep connection to nature. Some of them are all cement. But there has to be some way to plan what you called the flow from neighborhood to neighborhood. Some way that the best of being in a city lies comfortably next to nature and families._

_What about you? I know why you became a doctor, but not everyone actually likes it enough to stay with it, or at least stay with a big teaching hospital, so why do you love your work?_

Kate:  
_Why do I love my work? I don’t always. Everyone who works in a hospital knows that there are days. Bad days. We had one recently, it’s one reason I’m taking today off. I had time coming to me and after last Thursday, I needed to decompress and maybe cry a bit._

_I’m not an E.R. doctor. I’m sometimes called for consultations in the E.R., but it’s rare. Mostly, I’m a general practitioner who helps teach diagnostics. In a few years, maybe I’ll get to describe myself as someone who teaches diagnostics and sometimes works as a GP, but… I’m avoiding talking about it._

_Last Thursday, they were two doctors down in the E.R. so a GP who does diagnostics was kind of a holy grail to help patch the hole. E.R. duty is always up and down. Sometimes you get a hangnail coming in and moaning like it’s her deathbed, and other days, you’ll get a car wreck that encompasses a whole city block. We didn’t have either of those last week. We had headaches. I remember five different people coming in with headaches, the youngest was five. Two were concussions, severe enough to keep under observation for several hours. One died. We never knew how he got the concussion. We let the other one go home with someone to look after her. She came back later with ischemia. She’s only twenty four, but if we didn’t catch the swelling in time, the damage could be permanent. One person was diagnosed with migraines. One walked out after an ibuprofen. He’s the only one who might be okay. I hope he is. The five year old had a brain tumor. He’s young enough that he may regain full intellectual function, if it’s operable, if it’s benign. But telling his family, especially when the mother mentioned he’d been complaining his head hurt for weeks, that was one of the hardest things I’ve done as a doctor._

_Yep. I’m crying. But I also feel better. I can’t talk to anyone about this, but you’re safe. I’m sorry to dump this on you. Next time I’ll answer the question you asked because by then, I might like my job again._

Alex:  
_I can’t imagine dealing with life and death every day. The most one of my houses can do is affect someone’s quality of life. I think that’s important, too, but it’s definitely on another level._

 _The museum visit intrigued me. Did you avoid the architecture section on purpose?_

_I was surprised by some of your choices. I loved them, but why that Ganesha statue?_

Kate:  
_Most “dancing” statues look static, but that Ganesha is really getting down and boogieing. I think maybe I envy him a bit. I don’t let go when I dance._

Alex:  
_I’m not certain I agree. You seemed to let go when you danced with me. (And, yes, that Ganesha looked really happy.)_

Kate:  
_You asked me once why I like my job. I am not an obstetrician. It never appealed to me as a specialty. I was an obstetrician today. I helped a woman give birth in the E.R. None of the nurses were available, and she didn’t wait for the obstetrician on call. The baby was coming NOW. Her three year old daughter wouldn’t go away, so I had her clamp the cord. And after the times with all the death, it felt good to bring in new life._

Alex:  
_Kids. Do you want them?_

Kate:  
_I don’t know. Part of me does, wants my parents to continue, wants to pass along whatever makes me unique to make someone else unique. You know, I never discussed this with Morgan. He had three kids -- the girl would be in the middle -- all planned out. Seeing what that woman went through in the E.R. a couple of weeks ago, my first thought is hell, no. But her daughter was so curious about her new brother and all the ‘yechiness’ -- her word. I hope I spelled it right. So that’s a maybe someday, I guess. You?_

Alex:  
_If I found the right house to raise them in, maybe. Probably. I know the hard work won’t be on me until after the kid is born._

_Another museum question, you seem to really like the Dutch painters. Why?_

Kate:  
_I guess because I feel like I’m seeing something real. Real people doing jobs and making a daily life for themselves. They’re not idealized. It just occurred to me, I think I like them because I can see myself in them. I could have been that dairy maid or servant girl or householder. My mother is Dutch, so I have the same bones._

Alex:  
_I keep promising myself I won’t write. You haven’t answered or even picked up the ones in the mailbox. Do you still come here for comfort? If not, where do you go? Have you found your father’s copy of_ Persuasion _yet? I left it for you._


	2. Afterward

They sat on the roof of the lake house, sipping hot chocolate and watching the sunset. After the emotions of the day, it felt later than 5:15, but the silence between them was easy. They faced each other legs touching, grounding them in a sense of reality; their hands were within easy distance of each other, too, waiting to warm and be warmed.

“Good cocoa,” Kate said. “I don’t think I could make it without the little Swiss Miss packets.”

“Not a cook?” Alex said.

“My mom praised my tuna salad.” She quirked her head to one side, her tell for teasing. “Do you cook? I mean other than killer cocoa?”

Alex chuckled. “Bachelor cooking: chilli, spaghetti, omelets. If I want to impress a girl…”

Kate grinned at him. “Impress me.”

“I can roast a chicken.”

“Definitely better than I can do. My mother, she’s such a good cook, and I’ll follow her instructions in the kitchen, but I’ve never done much on my own.”

“Other than making an excellent tuna salad.”

She nodded. “Other than an excellent tuna salad.” There was a long pause. “I should call Morgan.”

Alex took her hand and looked toward the sunset. “You know where the phone is,” he said gently.

“I do.” Kate sighed. “I think I need more of this excellent cocoa, probably with a shot of something in it, before I do.”

He tugged on her hand to pull her under his arm. She leaned her head on his shoulder and said, “But not just yet.”

***  
Once the sun was well and truly down and there were so many stars they couldn’t begin to count them, they headed back inside. Alex put some wood in the stove to warm them, and Kate picked up the phone twice. The first time she called her favorite pizza place and got a large salad and a medium sausage and mushroom pizza. The second was to call Morgan.

Alex heard her say, “You’re right. I should have called earlier,” and decided to give her some privacy. He wrote a note and slid it onto the table beside her. Kate looked up and smiled at him, and he found himself smiling back. He stepped back and left before he could be drawn in by her presence again.

When he came back about half an hour later, he had the pizza in one hand and was juggling two six packs in the other. Kate was still on the phone and he heard her say, “Thank you for understanding. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She grinned at him as soon as she hung up and came to rescue the pizza.

“I seemed to recall that you liked cider better than beer,” Alex said.

“Oh, I’m fine with anything.” Kate caught herself and said, “You’re right. I do prefer it. I’m so used to just accepting whatever is offered to me. Morgan didn’t like cider, so we didn’t keep it in the fridge. We had more red wines than white.”

“But you like white wine better.”

She nodded. “Usually.”

“I only heard the last line before you hung up. It sounded like things with Morgan went well?”

Kate shook her head. “That was Anna. She’s letting me come in for the afternoon shift tomorrow, and we’ll talk about pushing my start time back an hour -- which, of course, also pushes my end time back an hour -- while I’m staying here. I mean, I can stay here, right?”

“Of course you can. You don’t even have to ask.”

Kate said, “I do. We’re new to this.”

“Yeah, but I think we know each other better than some people who’ve been together for years.”

“Yes,” she said simply. “What we don’t know are the things like how we do laundry or…”

Alex interrupted. “I separate my lights from my darks as well as my colors from my whites.”

“I send out everything except my underwear.”

He laughed. “It looks like I’ll be in charge of housekeeping.”

“Looks like.” She took another slice of pizza. “I work terrible hours.”

“I know.”

“Have you been stalking me?”

Alex looked up and said, “No. There have been times when I’ve been tempted to find you, but your letter saying ‘wait together’ helped keep me sane. That and lots of work. I did see you once, purely by accident. I was waiting at a crosswalk and you were caught by the light. I thought, ‘she’s cut her hair,’ and I stayed on the sidewalk because if I’d crossed in front of you, I knew I would say something.”

“How close was that to your standing me up? Because I probably would have either screamed at you like a mad woman or burst into tears. That hurt.”

“I know. I haven’t figured out what happened to let us communicate across time. You wrote the letter that I’ve had for nearly two years just hours ago. You saved my life, but at the expense of two years we could have had together.”

Kate said, “You died in front of me. I was the first doctor on the scene, and I couldn’t save you. To find out that that anonymous man was the one I’d come to love so much…”

Alex said, “I love you, too, Kate. I can’t promise forever. No one can. But I can promise I’ll work hard to have a forever with you.”

“Even if I kick you out of your place for a bit?”

“I just come here on weekends, not even every weekend. I can stay in town until I’m invited.”

Kate said, “It’s not that I don’t want you here, but, God, I literally just broke up with my … I think he was going to ask me to marry him, so nearly fiance … I broke up with him on the phone. I told him he could buy my condo off me if he wanted. That’s going to be an interesting discussion.”

“I know Kate. I waited for you. You didn’t know -- you couldn’t know -- that you were waiting for me.” There was a long pause. Alex broke it. “If Morgan is right for you -- it sounds awful, but from that birthday party I don’t see how he can be -- but if he is, tell me now.”

Kate came over and put her arm around his shoulder. Very softly she said, “There’s never been anyone for me, but you. The first time, I think Morgan just wanted someone to marry. This time, I was lonely and angry and he was easy to be around, at least at first. This break-up, in spite of his imminent probable proposal, I think it’s been coming for awhile, and it was inevitable.”

He turned his head and kissed her, awkwardly because of the angle. She moved around, and, just as they had at the mailbox, they fit together perfectly.

“I’ve told Morgan he has two months to make up his mind about buying me out. I… Without selling, the deposit I put down on the house in town wipes me out. I calculated everything with two incomes.”

“My income is more irregular than yours, but Visionary Vanguard is doing pretty well for a young firm. You’ll still have two incomes. And I can promise you a handyman at your beck and call.”

Kate blinked. “It just occurred to me. I’ve seen the plans your brother and Vanessa made for the house. They were great. I wonder if Morgan and I actually saw something different today.”

He kissed her hand and went over to the desk in the corner. “I don’t have the full model,” Alex said, “but here are the plans. Henry and Vanessa were upset with me, but when I saw the name, I took over the project myself. Henry knew just enough to tell you I’d be here if you wanted to see me.”

“Rather than telling me you’d died.” 

Kate was close to tears again, and Alex kissed them away before putting the plans on the table. 

Kate said, “It looks perfect. Completely perfect. Tell me how you did this.”

Alex grinned at her and walked her through the renovations.


End file.
